Rain of the Ages: Mark's Story
by Chocolatelover616
Summary: It's 1995, and Mark is about to turn thirty. He looks back upon the three decades that have passed him by and wonders where the time has gone. He remembers the defining moments of his life that have molded him into the person he is.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Prologue

_July sixteenth, 1995. Nine PM, Eastern Standard Time,_ I thought to myself. I stood alone on the fire escape of my East Village Loft. The ominous stormy breezes of a mid-July thunderstorm blew through my spiky blond hair like wind through a cornfield. Gale-force winds plastered rain against my face and water-droplets against my glasses, making it impossible to see. I grasped the slippery railing with my life and breathed in the dense humidity of New York smog mixed with acid rain. I've always enjoyed the rain. There's something so refreshing yet so depressing that clears my mind in rain. I know a lot of people who hate that about rain—they claim it makes them sad. But it makes me happy. And I certainly needed that at this moment.

You see, I'm about to turn thirty. I have no wife, no girlfriend, no kids, no steady job, no friends that will be alive in another five years, no family, no attachment to this earth. And… that's the way I like it. That's the way it's always been. Ever since I was a kid. And I think back to my childhood, to the defining moments. To the moments that made me who I am today. And I wonder where the time has gone. What ever happened to the eighties, to the seventies, to the sixties. To R.E.M., to the Beatles, to Vietnam, to Watergate, to drive-in movie theaters, to lemonade stands, to blondes with side ponytails, to real glass Coke bottles, to everything I have known up until this point in time. And I look back on it, and I remember as I stand on the fire escape, soaked in this city's rain.


	2. Bionic Vision

Prologue

Bionic Vision

"Mommy… Do I have to go?" I wailed and pouted to my mother as she grabbed my hand and dragged me across Main Street in Scarsdale, New Jersey. She squeezed my hand tighter in an attempt to make me walk faster.

"Yes, Markie, the school nurse says we have to," My mother said exasperatedly. "She sent me a letter saying you failed your vision test," She pulled me into a corner store with displays of outrageous eyeglasses in the windows. A doctor's name and degree were inscribed on the glass door. Inside, there were even more eyeglasses. There wasn't a single bit of wall space without a rack of glasses or an occasional mirror. The whole place smelled kind of funny. It was a septic, stuffy smell, of Lysol and simultaneously mold. There was a brightly colored display over in the corner for kid's glasses. There was a girl with curly blond hair over there trying on a pair. I shuddered. I thought they looked horrendous on her. As I crossed my arms over my chest in a rather defensive posture, I heard a voice from somewhere to my left.

"Mark Cohen?" My head spun around to an old bat sitting at a receptionist's desk. Her scarlet nails were an inch too long and reminded me of talons. I grimaced at her wrinkled face and perm.

"That's me."

"And this must be Jennifer," she gestured to my mother. She nodded, obviously disgusted by this woman's sense in personal appearance as well. "Doctor Caulfield will be ready for you in a minute. If you could just fill out these forms, Jennifer, that would be lovely," she smiled falsely and handed my mother a clipboard with a thin packet on it and a huge pen with the brand name of some medicine written on it. My mother took the clipboard and dragged me over to a chair. I grabbed a magazine and started reading. My mother flipped through pages and occasionally scrawled something down. I sat nervously, my feet dangling in thin air over the edge of the chair. I felt very scared… What if I needed glasses? None of the other kids in my class wore them… I would be teased horribly… I could only imagine the taunting. My fantasies were just starting to run away with me when a man, probably in his early thirties (young for a doctor, I thought) emerged from the back of the office. He had dark hair and was _really_ tall, over six feet. He was wearing a white lab coat and a thick pair of glasses. He walked over to my mom and me, extending a hand to her.

"Jennifer Cohen?" He smiled genuinely. "I'm Doctor Caulfield. Call me Will."

"That's me," my mother smiled and accepted his handshake. "Nice to meet you, Will."

"And you must be Mark," he extended a hand to me as well. I liked this man. He didn't treat me like a kid. I nodded. "You look scared," he laughed. "Come on, we'll get started."

He led my mother and me through the office and through a door in the back. The room we were in was pretty small. There was one really big chair and a few funky looking machines, as well as a counter like at a regular doctor's office and a spinny chair for him and another chair for my mom. There was a backlit chart on the wall in front of the chair. "You get to sit in the big chair, Mark," I jumped into the brown leather chair and crossed my legs comfortably in front of me. Doctor Caulfield sat down in his spinny chair and began to ask me questions. "How old are you, Mark?"

"I'm six."

"So you're in first grade?"

"Yes."

"Mark's very bright," my mother assured the doctor.

"And you failed the school vision test?" He peered up at me through his thick glasses.

"Yeah," I looked down, slightly ashamed of myself.

"Mark," he said, looking at me intently. "It's nothing you can help. It's not like failing a real test, a school test. It's different than that. It's your eyes, not you." He went back to asking me more questions. Did I get headaches? Occasionally. Did I like to read? All the time. Did I like sports? Never have. "Alright, Mark. All I need you to do I cover your right eye and read as much of this chart as you can," I took the spoon-like instrument he handed me and covered my right eye. The minute I looked at the chart my heart sank. I could only read the first line.

"E." I said definitively.

"Go on," Doctor Caulfield said.

"E. That's it."

"That's all you can see?"

"Yup."

"Well, you certainly do need glasses then… Let's try the other eye."

I covered my left eye. This time it was even worse. "I can't see anything."

"Okay," Doctor Caulfield said. He took a few lenses out of a drawer and put them into a pair of glasses with a special mechanism that allowed lenses to slide in and out. "Put these on. Then try." I put on the weird glasses. They were too big, sized for adults, and slid down my nose. I pushed them up and looked at the chart. _Wow._ I could see so much more. Not everything, but it was a big difference. "Read the last line you can see," I read a line a few lines down. Doctor Caulfield continued to put different lenses in the glasses until I could see everything he wanted me to. "Alright. Here's Mark's prescription," he scrawled out a few numbers on a scrip sheet and handed it to my mother. "Mark, you can go out into the lobby and pick a pair of glasses now."

"Do I have to? Can't I just… go without?" I pleaded with him.

"No, Mark," he turned stern on me for the first time. "You don't realize how much you're missing out on. Really. You can't see anything. You should wear your glasses all the time," he addressed my mother as well as me. My head hung low. Doctor Caulfield bent down to my level. "Are you worried about something, Mark?" He asked concernedly. I began to sniffle, and then to cry.

"I'm just…" I wiped a tear of my cheek. "What will the other kids thing?" My blue eyes met his brown ones, and he hugged me.

"Oh, Mark… what they think doesn't matter. Who you are isn't your glasses! It's what's in here," he jabbed my chest with his finger. "Besides, you're just the same. Think of glasses as being like a new coat. A new coat that enables you to see things other people can't. Like a superhero." _A superhero. With bionic vision. _I liked that. I nodded. "Good Mark. We'll see you back here in six months for a checkup." He led my mother and I out to the lobby where I ran over to the kid's section.

My mother and I slaved away for hours, me trying on frames and modeling them in the mirror and to her. Finally, we had it down to two pairs: a pair of gold colored aviators and smaller silver ovals. My mother put her finger to her lips and squinted as I tried on the silver ovals. "I just think… I think you look so much nicer in gold than silver, with your hair and everything… Try on the other ones again," and I put on the gold aviators. "Yes," she nodded. "Those, definitely," We took the frames to the ugly receptionist and gave her my prescription. She said they would be ready in a week.

When my mother and I returned home that evening for dinner, we discussed the day's events.

"So Markie is getting glasses," my mother forked a piece of asparagus and put it in her mouth, chewing as she watched the reactions of my sister Cindy and my father.

"Glasses?" Cindy cackled. "Haha! Markie's a four-eyes!" She delightedly forked four pieces of asparagus at once and put them in her mouth before realizing she hated asparagus. Cindy is four years older than me, making her ten and in fifth grade. She's everything I'm not—good at sports, social, pretty, and popular. The fact that she would have another thing to tease me about was just wonderful.

"About time," my father said. "When you've got two parents who are practically blind, you've gotta expect the kids are going to be like bats, too…" He pointed his steak knife at Cindy. "You're next Cynthia." She paled. My father is a banker. He doesn't care much for his family. He comes home for dinner and for Cindy's soccer games and spends the night, and then goes back to work. Even when the bank is closed, he will go to a café and do work there, or go to important meetings with people connected with Wall Street. People say Jews are into banking, and in our case, it's true.

"We pick them up next Tuesday," my mother informed my family.

"That's nice," my father replied. Discussion closed.

When my mother and I went back to pick up the glasses the following Tuesday, I found myself even more nervous than before. My heart pounded in my chest. All my fears, my anxieties were culminating to this point. I would never be the same again, once I put on those frames.

The same receptionist greeted us, and took us over to a table with a few chairs around it and a mirror. She brought out a tray from behind the counter with a black glasses case on it and my file. She opened the case.

"Here you are, Mark," and she handed me the glasses. The lenses were a lot thicker than I expected, and distorted anything through them. I held them in my hand, getting used to the thought that they were mine.

"Well?" My mother asked expectantly. "Put them on!" I obliged, and the moment I looked through those lenses, I gasped. Everything looked so… _crisp. _I saw everything exactly the way it was, the truth of the deceptive world around me. I saw every little piece of brown root on the receptionist's perm. Every little speck of green in my mother's hazel eyes. _Everything._ "And?" My mother asked again,

I could only stutter, "It's incredible."

The receptionist handed me the case. "Thank you, Mrs. Cohen, and Mark?" I turned to her. "You look spectacular."

My mother nudged me. "Say thank you."

"Th-thank you," I stuttered, still flabbergasted by this new, clear world.

The next day, I marched off to first grade with the air of some sort of superhero with bionic powers. I imagined myself with x-ray vision, seeing through the facades of first grade drama. As I walked into class in my overalls and red button-down shirt, my teacher, Miss Violet, said to me, "Why Mark! You look so regal and impressive in your new glasses!" I blushed, and then to my dismay, heard a drawling sneer behind me.

"Glasses? Mark got _glasses?" _It was Billy Anthony, the boy with two first names. (Well, that's what I called him privately behind his back. If he knew, I wouldn't be here to tell you about what would have happened). "Let me see!" Billy rushed to the front of the line, pushing past ten other students. He guffawed and pointed at me. "Four-eyes, four-eyes! Markie's got four eyes!" He rest of the class laughed and played along, Miss Violet frowning.

"Now class," she said, "let's all take a seat." The class listened to Miss Violet and immediately settled down. "Yes, Mark has glasses. I see you've all discovered that. But he also has the best grades in the whole class. He reads at a sixth grade level." My heart swelled. "So you have no reason to bother him about his appearance when he reads, writes, and does arithmetic better than all of you." Miss Violet closed the conversation and began to teach.

At lunch time, as I was getting out my peanut butter sandwich, Billy Anthony snuck up behind me and snatched my glasses off my face, putting them on his. "Haha, I've got four eyes!" He laughed and pranced around the cafeteria. I tried to shrink in my seat. "What's the matter, spider? Afraid to fight for them?"

I felt a tsunami rearing inside my chest, and then crashing onto shore as I stood up, albeit too quickly, slamming my knees on the table edge. My head swam in pain, as I said, "Not at all, Anthony William. I just thought that your mother wouldn't want you back in the state I could put you in." And I raised my fist, and slammed it right into his stomach as I quickly snatched my glasses off his face and put them on mine, crossing my arms defiantly as I sat back down to stares and scattered applause to eat my peanut butter sandwich.

That was the first and the last time I ever fought in school. It landed me in the Principal's office, but that was no big deal. He didn't even call my parents when he learned it was self-defense that had prompted me to punch Billy. That was the first time, though, that I really felt I had bionic vision. I had seen something no one else had. I had seen what a jerk Billy was, and how someone needed to stand up to him, and how that someone might as well be me considering I was the only one able to see him in his true light, albeit through the other side of the lens, detached from the rest of the world.


	3. That Mark Cohen Kid

Two years later, I walked into my family's townhouse after a long day at school

Two years later, I walked into my family's townhouse after a long day at school. Dumping my backpack on the ground next to the door and kicking off my sneakers, I yelled, "Mom! I'm home!" There was no answer. I scrunched my eyebrows with puzzlement and ran around the first floor of the house calling my Mom's name. "Mom?" Not in the kitchen. "Mom?" Not in the den. "Mom?" Not in the basement. Then I ran up the stairs and looked in all the bedrooms. Finally, I found her. "Mom, what's wrong?" I ran over to my mother, who was sobbing inconsolably on her bed, face in her hands.

"Nothing, Mark…" She wept louder and pushed me away. "Go start your homework. Tell Cindy to come see me when she gets home…" I obeyed my mother, and albeit confused, stepped away from the bed and out of the room. I walked across the hall and into the smallest bedroom, mine, to do my homework.

My room was nothing more than a walk-in closet. I didn't have a proper chest of drawers or a proper closet. Instead, shelves lined one wall. I concealed the shelves (where I kept my clothing in baskets) with a navy blue curtain. The only other furniture pieces in my room were a small desk, a twin bed, and a nightstand with an alarm clock on it. My parents often talked about converting the basement into a larger bedroom for me, but I liked my tiny room. I made the best of it by decorating it with my style—the light mustard-colored walls were covered with movie posters and advertisements for Broadway musicals. Playbills and ticket stubs were tacked onto a bulletin board above my desk. One window was positioned above the headboard of my bed, but could not be opened because of the air conditioning unit keeping my room at a bearable temperature during the traditionally hot and humid autumnal season in South Jersey.

I sat down at my desk and unpacked my backpack, beginning my math homework. We had just started long division, and I was delighted to find that not only did I find it easy, but also enjoyable. I was working on a particularly complex problem when I heard the front door slam and a man groan loudly with frustration.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! THOSE MOTHER FUCK--,"

"JACOB!" My mother ran to the top of the stairs. I watched her out my door. She looked livid. "How dare you, Mark's door is open!"

"Mom," I said wearily, "I know what fu--," I was cut off as my mother ran over to me and clapped a hand over my mouth.

"See!" She pointed her finger at my father. "He's already learned words he shouldn't know! See what you've done!" She accused him.

"Yeah, well, I don't give a damn," He saddles wearily out of my view from the top of the stairs. My mother ran down, taking the steps two at a time.

"Jacob, honey…" She tried to soothe him. "I know this isn't easy… but we just have to relax and take this one step at a time…" I could imagine her stroking his goatee, like she always does when my father is upset.

"DON'T TELL ME TO RELAX, JENNIFER!" He roared. "YOU DON'T WORK! YOU HAVEN'T BEEN LAID OFF!"

_So that's what's going on…_

"Yes, honey, I know--," All of a sudden there was a loud smacking noise and a thump as my mother flew across the room to the landing of the stairs. I could see a huge welt forming on her forehead. Just then, the front door opened.

"Mom, Dad, what's going on? I heard--," Cindy gasped as she saw my mother, groaning on the floor. "Mom! Are you al--," Her head turned, and I assumed she saw my Dad, enraged. "You didn't…" She asked him unsurely, shaking her head rapidly. "You couldn't…" My father walked over to the landing and looked at Cindy, revealing all the answers with his icy blue eyes. She didn't cower. I was proud of her for that. My father turned his back on Cindy and my mom, and I heard him walk into the kitchen.

Cindy bent over my mom, who was groaning on the floor. "Let me help you upstairs… you can rest in my room. Mark?" She had finally noticed me standing at the top of the stairs. "Are you alright?" She was acting genuinely concerned. I nodded. "Can you go get Mom an ice pack? I don't want to go into the kitchen with…" She trailed off, expecting me to know how her sentence would end. I nodded again, and slipped quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen. My father was sitting at our square, oak table sipping from a bottle of hard liquor. I didn't acknowledge his presence, feeling it would be safer that way. Upon opening the freezer, I fished around between bags of frozen French fries, turkey burgers and gallons of ice cream for an ice pack. Finally, I found one, and shut the freezer door.

As I was about to leave the kitchen, my father said, "They were downsizing, you know… low economy and all… and now I don't know what to do. We're going to have to move out of this house, into an apartment…" He trailed off, drowning his sorrows in another sip of whiskey.

It hadn't been the first of my father's violent outbursts, and it wouldn't be the last. A year later, my father was still unemployed, and we were living in a run-down apartment in the "black" section of town. Scarsdale has so little diversity that most minorities stick together in hopes of maintaining an identity. We had been a part of the Jewish community, but could no longer afford to live with them. Our new apartment had just four rooms. A room for my parents, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room with two measly couches that Cindy and I slept on at night. We often went without lunch and sometimes dinner, and as a result, Cindy and I were stick thin. Being a teenage girl, this was all good for her, but me being a scrawny, nerdy boy, it didn't help. My father, as I mentioned before, grew more and more violent with each passing day he couldn't get a job. He would walk in the door and slap whoever was in sight, and then proceed to use his fists as words. On more than one occasion, I was forced to wear long sleeves or jeans on an excruciatingly hot day so that no one would suspect I was being abused. The school nurse suspected it once, I think, but I just told her I played ice hockey outside school and got pretty banged up. She accepted this, as well as Cindy's excuse—she was a gymnast, and during practice, hurt herself on the parallel bars and the balance beam.

Therefore, it was no surprise one day in fourth grade when I came into school with a broken wrist.

"Dude, what happened to you?" My best friend Martin asked me at recess as we swung side by side on the swings. Martin was in my class at school and the only African-American kid in my grade. We became friends when I moved because Martin's family owned the apartment next to mine.

"I was playing ice hockey last night and had a pretty hard fall," I shrugged. "Turns out my wrist is broken."

"How long do you have the cast for?" Martin asked me, fascinated.

"Around eight weeks," I answered. Yeah, it was a pretty bad break. My father had been especially angry one night when I had come home from playing ten minutes after I said I'd be back. He took my right arm and twisted it, causing a full spiral fracture. When my mother took me to the hospital, the doctors asked me all kinds of questions, suspecting child abuse. I skillfully avoided them, and they let me leave without further inquiry. They were definitely suspicious though—spiral fractures are only caused by a twisting motion.

The obviously physical wounds weren't the only things plaguing me though—my self-esteem was nonexistent. I was "that Mark Cohen kid. You know, the scrawny one with blond hair and thick glasses who's good at math and writing and sucks at kickball?". Yeah, that was me. "That Mark Cohen kid". And that's all I would ever be. Or so I thought.


End file.
